Questions tagged [demography]

For questions about characteristics of a population.

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When and how did the Han ethnic group become by far the biggest ethnic group in China?

China is a very ethnic homogenous country, one ethnic group, the Han make up 92 % of China's population. Huaxia refers to a confederation of tribes—living along the Yellow River—who were the ...
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6 votes
0 answers
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How common were ethnically mixed villages in pre-WWII Czechoslovakia?

I was trying to find out whether the treaties that determined the post-war borders of Czechoslovakia were partly motivated as a punishment for the history of oppression by the German and Hungarian ...
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4 votes
1 answer
231 views

When did Turkic languages emerge in Central Asia? [closed]

Consider the countries Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan. They speak Turkic languages (alongside some Russian). It was primarily Iranic people (Scythians and Persians) who lived in ...
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4 votes
1 answer
687 views

Why do Eastern European countries have the greatest female-to-male ratio?

I'm taking a Data Analysis class where we go over some data samples. Today we went over the world population data from 1950 to 2015. We noticed that the proportion of females to males was the highest ...
1 vote
0 answers
247 views

What were the demographics of the ancient Crete (any population estimates from 500BCE to 1BCE will do)?

I am looking for any estimates on the population of ancient Crete in the time period 500BCE to 1BCE. I have searched for such estimates on google but I haven't found anything relevant. (Note: The ...
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2 votes
2 answers
261 views

What were the demographics of the ancient Greek colonies of Cyprus (any population estimates from 500BCE to 1BCE will do)?

Are there any estimates on the ancient populations of Cyprus from 500BCE to 1BCE. What were the demographics of the ancient Greek colonies of Cyprus (any population estimates from 500BCE to 1BCE will ...
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5 votes
1 answer
167 views

How many 'pubs' (alehouses, inns and taverns) were there in England in 1577?

I came across an interesting bit of demographic information while listening to a lecture: From early times people had rented out space in their houses for travellers, but by the thirteenth century ...
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1 vote
0 answers
139 views

Why is there a cutoff in population density running through the middle of the US? [duplicate]

There is this interesting line cutting across the US in terms of population density. It cuts through Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska. East is higher population density excluding some small ...
40 votes
2 answers
6k views

Why are many African-Americans in Mississippi concentrated in the northwestern area?

I was looking at a 2016 election map of Mississippi. I saw a that most of it was red, but the western part looked very blue. I looked up one of those counties, and not surprisingly for an American ...
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6 votes
1 answer
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Is there a population density map of pre-Columbian South America?

I have found such maps for North America, e.g. this one: But never for the southern continent. The goal is a broad overview. How many Lokono were there, compared to the Mapuche (and the Cree for that ...
0 votes
0 answers
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What were the demographics of New Orleans in the 1890s?

What were the demographics of New Orleans in the 1890s? Population, race, born overseas vs born in the US, that sort of thing. And what would be the best source to do more research about New Orleans ...
-3 votes
1 answer
375 views

What is the origin of US south region white people? [closed]

So where white people who live in south region of the USA did come from? For example there are a lot of Americans with german ancestry in midwest, english americans(WASPs) in northeast. But what is ...
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6 votes
1 answer
784 views

When was the deadliest year in human history in absolute terms?

The global mortality rate has been falling for quite some time. It's gone down from about 17.7 deaths per 1000 people in 1960, to 7.7 in 2016. Less discussed is absolute mortality, which I've ...
8 votes
2 answers
3k views

Why was France's birth rate low from 1800 to WWII?

Inspired by this lemma on Wikipedia as well as a few paragraphs here and there in Piketty's Capital in the 21st century I'm asking the question how the low birth rate in France between 1800 and WWII ...
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15 votes
5 answers
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Demographics: Were diseases the sole reason for the decrease in native Hawaiian population?

Wikipedia says: After Europeans and mainland Americans first arrived during the Kingdom of Hawaii period, the overall population of Hawaii, until that time composed solely of indigenous Hawaiians, ...
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22 votes
7 answers
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Why are the majority of Dresden inhabitants atheists or agnostics?

German Wikipedia says that Four fifths of the inhabitants of Dresden do not belong to any religious community. Approx. 20 % of the population is predominantly Christian. Original German text: ...
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11 votes
2 answers
1k views

When did Northern India and N. China begin to dominate in global demographics?

Video: Human Population Through Time This simple video says that there were 170 million people in the world at the beginning of the current era. Each dot represents a million people -there are about ...
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7 votes
4 answers
2k views

Are there any examples of overpopulation?

Malthus was one of the first one who raised the concern about overpopulation and it is today seen as a potential threat to humanity. Are there any historical examples where overpopulation led to ...
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6 votes
1 answer
383 views

Did nomadic Bedouins outnumber sedentary Arabs in 7th century Arabian peninsula?

In the present states like UAE, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, were there more nomadic people than sedentary or settled Arab peoples during the 7th century?
11 votes
3 answers
7k views

Why did the Eastern U.S. population decrease so much during WWII?

I was looking at this graph of the United States' population over time and noticed the dip in population for many Eastern states that starts around 1939 and ends in July of 1945. Obviously this ...
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23 votes
2 answers
26k views

What was the ratio women to men after World War 2 in the Soviet Union

I can imagine that after World War 2 the ratio of women versus men changed drastically. During World War 2, Soviet casualties amounted to over 20,000,000, and as military casualties were almost all ...
18 votes
1 answer
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Why did the population of Descartes, France increase by so much in the 1960's?

The population of Descartes in central France increased by upwards of 150% from 1962 to 1968 after a general negative trend over the preceding seventy years. Why was this? All I can find is that the ...
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-2 votes
2 answers
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Religions that have disappeared/declined significantly in places where they originated or once flourished? [closed]

I'm interested in a list of religions that have either disappeared or significantly declined in followership in the place where they originated or once flourished. One example that I have is for ...
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3 votes
1 answer
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Is there any information on what numbers of American families have what numbers of children, for any time period?

Is there any information on what numbers of American families have what numbers of children, for any time period? Like, "How many families / couples have more than 7 kids, in 1950?" 'Cause all the ...
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37 votes
4 answers
12k views

Why did the population of Anchorage, Alaska, increase by so much in the 1970s?

Between 1970 and 1980, the population of Anchorage, Alaska, increased by more than 260%, around 130,000 people. What caused this? There had been previous increases of approximately the same in ...
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8 votes
1 answer
343 views

Were death rates greater than birth rates in premodern urban populations?

In the book by Peter Turchin, War and Peace and War. The rise and fall of empires, on page 151, I found the following sentence: Until modern times, death rates of urban populations always ...
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8 votes
1 answer
378 views

What was the ratio of French to English speakers in Upper Canada before and after the American Revolution?

Immediately before the American Revolution, the area that would become Upper Canada (modern-day Ontario) was largely French-speaking, having been a French colony until 1763 when the British took over. ...
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0 votes
2 answers
614 views

Had there been a significant physiological difference between the Vikings and the Europeans (around the 11th century)? [closed]

Everyone who has seen the show The Vikings surely noticed that the Nordic men are far more muscular and much bigger. Is there a genetic difference that was making them better fighters or had they ...
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1 vote
2 answers
2k views

What caused the rapid African population growth in the last decades?

Wikipedia states: [African] population doubled in the period 1982–2009[4] and quadrupled from 1955–2009, according to United Nations estimates. Is there a consensus on the causes behind this rapid ...
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666 views

What were the origins of the Bulgarian people? [closed]

In my home history lessons and books it is stated that Bulgarians and Hungarians were, in earlier times, pure Turks but they lost their Turkish features over time when they met Christendom. Really, ...
5 votes
1 answer
235 views

When did Comino become depopulated?

Comino, the smallest of the three Maltese islands, is covered in terraces and walls, which seems to indicate that at one time the entire island was heavily occupied and cultivated. As late as the 19th ...
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7 votes
2 answers
611 views

How was the Urnfield culture represented around 1300 BC in the area the Romans called Gallia Belgica?

I have been doing some research for the alternate history book I've been thinking about writing for a few years now, and have been happy to be able to fit my events nicely into geography and ...
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9 votes
2 answers
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What was the average size of French families during the Middle Ages?

My question takes place in at the beginning of the middle-ages in France. Let's focus on small villages and ordinary people (peasants, craftsmen, etc.). I would like to know how many people used to ...
4 votes
0 answers
130 views

Ethnic composition of antebellum Massachusetts

What was the ethnic composition of Massachusetts in the decades before the Civil War? I am particularly interested in knowing what percentage of the population claimed English, Scottish, North Irish, ...
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6 votes
1 answer
841 views

Why are the Rohingya not recognized in Myanmar (Burma), amongst the other 135 ethnic groups?

The government of Myanmar (Burma) officially recognizes 135 ethnic groups. This sounds like, to use a technical term, 'a lot'. It would thus seem that they tried to be pretty inclusive, at least when ...
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35 votes
3 answers
10k views

Did people use to marry much younger during the last millennium?

I've frequently heard it stated that "people used to marry at much younger ages" historically. Recently, these kinds of statements have tended to show up in sociological discussions about young ...
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2 votes
0 answers
69 views

Historical African Demographic and Agriculture Data

I'm looking for resources that give the the demographic breakdown of African nations for the time period 1880-1960 (so colonization), such as from censuses. Primarily, I need the european share of the ...
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15 votes
2 answers
3k views

How common was it for people to live 80+ years in the 17th century?

I was studying music and saw in a music score sheet that Tomaso Albinoni lived 80 years. I know that long before that people had lived to that age. I would like to know just how common that was. Did ...
3 votes
0 answers
69 views

Historical drivers behind demographics of Indigenous populations in American countries [duplicate]

Today I run into this picture (shown below) that shows what seems to be a stark difference in the percentage of indigenous populations in Spanish speaking countries vs other countries in the Americas (...
6 votes
1 answer
12k views

What percentage of the population in the Thirteen Colonies in 1776 were first/second generation immigrants?

Besides British immigration, did the thirteen colonies see a lot of immigration from other European states?
3 votes
3 answers
936 views

What factors contributed to the United States having a larger proportion of Jews than other British colonies?

Related but more broad question: Why is such a large percentage of Jewish population worldwide in USA According to Wikipedia, the United States has a higher proportion of Jews than Canada, Australia ...
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18 votes
2 answers
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Are there any scientific estimates for the population of Mycenaean Greece?

There are a lot of population estimates for Greece of antiquity (from the Archaic period circa VIII century B.C. to the late Roman times of Theodosius 395 A.D.) in academic publications. Also, I found ...
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5 votes
1 answer
827 views

Yearly population growth rate throughout history

Has there been a comprehensive analysis of relative human population growth rate throughout history? I'm interested in seeing how the growth rate (not world population) has evolved in the past ...
21 votes
1 answer
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What was the relatively most populous city in history?

Which city did, at a given time, have the largest percentage of humanity living in it? I think that it's probably Imperial Rome, which is said to have reached a million inhabitants, at a time when ...
34 votes
10 answers
22k views

Why does Latin America have a higher number of surviving Native Americans than North America?

Despite having the same disease susceptibility and technological inferiority against the Europeans, it seems that Native Americans have much more surviving descendants in Latin America compared to ...
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3 votes
3 answers
1k views

When did the majority of Americans stop living on farms? [closed]

I know defining a farm is tricky. I will, of course, take any definition available. If I could pick, I would say that if there is one person working full-time outside of a household, that household is ...
6 votes
1 answer
2k views

What was the estimated population of the Mississippi Valley before contact with Europeans?

According to Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel (p. 211), the Mississippi Valley used to contain populous Indian societies: When we in the United States think of the most populous New World ...
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6 votes
1 answer
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What was the average size of a guild in 13th century Europe?

Guilds were a big deal. How many people would make up a guild, on average? I'm assuming a guild could include master, journeyman, and apprentice craftsmen, as well as clerks, warehousers, enforcers, ...
4 votes
2 answers
329 views

How many people lived in the Mexican territories annexed by the US?

What was the population of the areas annexed by the US from Mexico in the 1840s? Basically, "Texas," "California" and the area in between?
5 votes
2 answers
967 views

Why is such a large percentage of Jewish population worldwide in USA

Close to 50% of all the Jews worldwide reside in USA. What were the main historical events and trends that contributed to such a distribution? A good answer should include both demographics and ...
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